Part 32 (2/2)

The chateau and the grounds were once more their own; their minds and their souls were their own. Jacqueline's exaltation expressed itself in an amazingly good dinner; Helen's in a series of fresh cartoons over their coffee, which included ”our hero” from the Southwest knocking down the German.

A call from the cure brought word that trains would begin running to Paris on the morrow, which was a reminder to all that their period of isolation was over; and for Phil a strange and memorable holiday would be at an end. Helen went out with the cure and Phil and Henriette turned up the path. After they had watched the flashes of the guns in the distance for a while, they started walking slowly back and forth.

”I don't know what we should have done if you had not been here,” she said.

”At least, I kept you in the cellar! Are you glad that you came?” he asked.

”I would not have missed it for worlds!” answered Henriette. ”And I owe it to you.”

”No, to Helen. But for her we should have been in Paris.”

”Yes, that's true,” she replied thoughtfully. ”And what would have become of her if we had not come?”

”Gone on sketching until a sh.e.l.l hit her, I should say.”

”Or until she saw a wounded man and fainted! But there is something that I do owe to you and to you alone,” Henriette went on softly. ”I am appalled when I think of it--of the obligation. I--well----” now one of her trickling, enchanting laughs. ”There's the portrait to repay you! I think that we might have a sitting in the morning.”

Here a white figure appeared around the corner of the path, and they were face to face with Helen. She drew back in the embarra.s.sment of one conscious of more than a mere inadvertent intrusion.

”I was going to look at the gun-fire for a minute,” she said. It might have been Henriette's voice suddenly changing the subject. She had on the simple gown whose cut was the same as Henriette's, who had dressed for dinner that evening with her usual care. Something in Helen's distraitness, a sense of her loneliness, aroused an impulse in Phil.

”Make it three!” said he. He went to her, took her hand and drew her arm into his. She seemed to resist slightly and then to yield almost tremblingly. Henriette also slipped her arm into his.

”Cousins!” she exclaimed, a happy thought in view of the situation in more ways than one.

They paced on together, two white slippers moving from under white skirts against the dark earth in unison with his own steps. Cousins!

But any reason for his remaining at Mervaux was past.

”Now I shall go to Paris to-morrow,” said Phil, ”and inform your mother, wherever she is, that you are all right, and get off a cable to an old couple in Longfield which will stop their worrying.”

”I think that we had better go with you,” said Henriette. ”Don't you, Helen?”

”Yes, to Paris!” said Helen, with such definiteness that it surprised her sister. Her mind was no less fixed than when she had decided to remain alone at Mervaux. She and her thousand francs and her sketches were going to America in the hazard of new fortunes. ”I only ran up to see the gun-fire and I think I'll look in on Mere Perigord and get her views on the state of affairs in France,” she added, starting to withdraw her hand; but Phil held it fast.

”Our last night together at Mervaux,” he said. ”Let Mere Perigord wait.”

Something strong and irresistible in his grip made her yield; but he could not see the twinge in her features hidden by the darkness. It was torture for her, this promenade with the man to whom she had said ”Yes.” The desire for flight had never been so strong; flight from Mervaux and all old a.s.sociations to new worlds.

They had ceased to talk as they kept on rhythmically pacing in the dark, each with his own thoughts. Phil, looking backward now when the strain had pa.s.sed, saw the whole experience at Mervaux with a sense of personal incompetency; as a helpless spectator of action.

”I'm getting sleepy!” Helen pleaded at last.

”So am I,” Phil replied. ”Four more turns!”

He did not like to part with their companions.h.i.+p in the faint starlight this last evening at Mervaux.

”You will go straight to America?” Henriette asked, as they started toward the house.

”I think so, if I can catch a steamer. I imagine that not one-tenth of the homeward rush has been accommodated yet.”

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